Peter Fonda, Warren Oates, and Henry Dean Stanton battle over "who
gets to fish and who gets to cut bait" in the arty character study 92 IN
THE SHADE.

Having arrived at the idea of becoming a fishing guide by "process
of elimination", wandering middle-aged beach bum Tom Skelton (Fonda, EASY
RIDER) sets about learning the ropes from seemingly laid back Carter (Stanton,
ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK) and unhinged loner Nicol Dance (Oates, COCKFIGHTER). Although
he regards them, respectively, as "the sun and the moon," they resent
the extra competition the quick learner will bring to their little corner of
the Everglades. When Dance wounds bait salesman Roy (John Quade, THE STING)
with a fish hook and ends up in the slammer, he has no choice but to let Tom
take over his bookings lest "friend" Carter corner the market. While
Dance lies around in a jail cell musing on how he has killed Roy (or has he?),
Carter needs all the work he can get to pay for his wife Jeannie's (EVENING
SHADE's Elizabeth Ashley) showpieces. When Tom takes his first clients out on
a fishing expedition and they mysteriously disappear, he returns to land to
discover that he has been the victim of hazing by Dance. Tom reacts to this
by blowing up Dance's boat. Tom's grandfather Goldsboro (Burgess Meredith, THE
SENTINEL), a prominent lawyer, advises that Dance wait for his insurance to
replace his boat and threatens to run him out of town if the tries to bring
suit against Tom. Waiting for his insurance to pay off, Dance mulls over killing
Tom but admits that he has "gone soft" and merely forbids Tom to guide.
Although Tom's bedridden father (William Hickey, THE TELEPHONE BOOK) wants Tom
to find another job, describing Tom as a "violent dilettante" who
does not really understand the graveness of the situation with Dance (or Carter
who plays nice but is pushing both men towards destruction), Tom goes ahead
with his plans to be a guide when his grandfather puts up the money for a brand
new skiff boat. When Dance learns of Tom's new boat, Carter can only surmise
that "there's a good chance somebody might get killed."

Not
even remotely resembling the 1970s backcountry exploitation film the plot could
have produced, 92 IN THE SHADE – the sole feature directorial effort of
novelist/screenwriter Thomas McGuane (THE MISSOURI BREAKS) and based upon his
own novel – is more of a Southern Gothic character study. Although we
identify with Tom despite his reckless way of going through life, he is just
as eccentric as Carter and Dance (who wants revenge even though he appears to
view Tom's destruction as his boat as a reasonable reaction to what seemed like
a relatively benign act of hazing). In that respect, Margo Kidder (BLACK CHRISTMAS)
as Tom's love interest Miranda is more believable as a somewhat slatternly "school
marm" than as a "schoolteacher," and it is less depressing to
think of Ashley's aging cheerleader peculiar rather than a depressive drunk.
Goldsboro, Tom's father and his mother (Louise Latham, MARNIE) – failed
proprietors of a whore house all speak in rather Tennessee Williams-esque poetic
terms – in contrast to Tom's "monosyllabic son of a bitch" –
while Goldsboro's lewd secretary (Sylvia Miles, THE SENTINEL) seems like a Henry
Miller character. Like Miles, Latham, and Ashley, Kidder flits in and out of
the film to provide additional character shadings of uncertainty to their male
counterparts, not so much as structural devices but as archetypal opposites.
Besides the always entertaining Joe Spinell (MANIAC) as a city slicker with
a certificate for a free fishing trip, famed casting director Louis DiGiaimo
(THE EXORCIST, THE GODFATHER) outfits the film with an impressive supporting
cast: Warren J. Kemmerling (FAMILY PLOT) as the local boat builder, John Heffernan
(GOD TOLD ME TO) as Roy's replacement bait seller/trip coordinator, as well
as THE WASP WOMAN's William Roerick and BOUND FOR GLORY's Evelyn Russell as
pompous and wealthy customers.

Released
by United Artists theatrically and by Key Video on VHS, 92 IN THE SHADE has
come to the digital realm from Scorpion Releasing on DVD only, although it does
not appear that to been an issue of materials as the brand new 2015 HD master
presented here in progressive, anamorphic 1.78:1 widescreen looks pretty much
as expected given the film's diffused and sunburnt exteriors, grainy natural
light day interiors, grainier night interiors, and some fading at the edge of
the frame in a couple shots probably the result of flare rather than deterioration.
The Dolby Digital 2.0 mono track is in fine condition. Since this is an ITC
title acquired from ITV (and not a limited Blu-ray), the disc is encoded as
Region 1. The only extras are trailers for BARBAROSA, KILLER FORCE, FIREPOWER,
THE LAST SEDUCTION and CARAVAN TO VACCARES. (Eric
Cotenas)